The Punjab and Haryana excessive courtroom has framed six questions to look at the legality of proceedings initiated towards IAS officer Sonal Goel by the Haryana authorities.

Goel, in her pleas filed final month, had challenged the Haryana authorities’s sanction for “inquiry” sought by the vigilance bureau (VB) pursuant to 2 FIRs registered in Faridabad towards some workers. The problem pertains to corruption in allotment of improvement works in Faridabad throughout her posting because the municipal company commissioner. The FIRs don’t identify her as an accused.

Now, the courtroom would look at whether or not the phrases ‘enquiry’, ‘inquiry’ and ‘investigation’ have distinct meanings or can be utilized interchangeably as per the usual working process (SOP) below the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). The petitioner’s argument was that each one phrases have distinct and separate meanings. The state, however, had argued that although the sanction makes use of the phrase ‘inquiry’, the identical shall entail inside its fold an ‘investigation’.

Another query framed is whether or not the sanction granted for ‘inquiry’ below Section 17A of the PC Act could be interpreted as a sound sanction for conducting ‘investigation’? In this case, Goel’s argument was that since there isn’t any sanction for investigation, below the garb of a sanction for inquiry, the identical can’t be assumed to be taken for authorizing investigation.

It would additionally look at whether or not ‘substitution’ of statutory provision would have the identical that means as ‘repeal’, ‘amend’, ‘omit’ or ‘delete’? Her argument was that interpretation of those phrases can’t be equated to the usage of the phrase ‘substitution’. Further, it has to look at whether or not a sanction granted for an already substituted statutory provision is legitimate.

The questions have cropped up as sanction was accorded by the chief secretary in 2022, even because the mentioned part didn’t exist within the statute ebook because the PC Act was amended in 2018. The courtroom would additionally look at whether or not a typical sanction could be granted for all officers even because the SOP contemplates separate sanction to be obtained for every of them and additional whether or not such an motion would render it “bad in law”.

Another side to be examined is that whether or not the sanction granted for the sections of the PC Act, which has already been substituted previous to the grant of sanction, could be legitimate and enforceable in regulation.